“Go away,” Day said, voice thick with tears.
Jackson sighed. “I can’t do that. Not until we talk this out.”
Day sniffled. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m fine.”
“You’re obviously not fine. I didn’t mean to upset you or make you cry. Can I please come in?” Jackson asked. There was no answer. “Day?”
Jackson listened intently at the door, but all sounds had ceased from the other side. Suddenly, Jackson thought of Wyatt lying in the hospital bed, white as a sheet, after he’d almost bled out from when he was a cutter. What if Day was hurting himself?
“Day?”
Jackson took a step back and kicked the bathroom door with enough force to drive the hollow door off its hinges. Day sat in the empty bathtub, now staring at the remnants of the bathroom door and Jackson in shock.
“What in the actual fuck?” Day asked, dabbing at his eyes with a washcloth. “Did you hit your head or something? Can’t a guy get five seconds of privacy to have a meltdown in peace?”
Jackson felt his face grow hot. “I just thought… Never mind.”
Day sniffled once more, his eyes red-ringed and bloodshot, his nose running. “You just thought…what? I was drowning?”
“Nothing. It was stupid.”
“So, I have to bare my soul to you, but you can’t even tell me why you just pulled a shock and awe on my bathroom door?” Day said before blowing his nose loudly with the roll of toilet paper he’d taken into the bathtub with him.
“It was stupid. I thought… I thought maybe you were upset enough to hurt yourself.”
Day’s mouth fell open, but then he scoffed. “You thought I’d slit my wrists in the bathtub because you figured out I’m fucking stupid and can’t read? Please, if people thinking I’m stupid was all it took to make me off myself, I’d have never made it past the third grade. My grandmother called me stupid so much, I was convinced it was my given name.”
Jackson stepped over the shattered remnants of the door and stepped into the bathtub, grateful it was a soaking tub and not the standard one in his Miami apartment. He picked Day’s legs up so he could sit, then refused to let them go, half thinking Day might run again. “I don’t think you’re fucking stupid. Don’t say that. You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.”
Day snorted. “Look, I know we’re sleeping together, but you don’t have to give me empty compliments.”
Jackson’s nostrils flared, and he ground his teeth until the muscle in his jaw popped. “Just stop, okay? Stop acting like I’m the kind of person who would give you fake compliments because I want to keep sleeping with you. That’s not who I am. It’s like you just said. You pay your own bills. You’ve found a way to get around not being able to read. Jesus, Day. You speak four fucking languages…”
“Five,” Day said, wiping his nose with his forearm. “Six if you count American sign language.”
“You’re not stupid. You’re…” Jackson floundered for the word. “You’re incredible.”
Day looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh, but it suddenly broke through, a high-pitched almost hysterical giggle. “Incredible? Wow. You really do love this ass, huh?” Day said.
“You’re such a brat,” Jackson snarled, but there wasn’t any heat behind it because Day pitched himself headfirst into Jackson’s arms, hugging his neck and kissing his mouth.
Jackson gathered him in his arms until they were both sat fully clothed, Day between Jackson’s thighs, his arms around him. Day tipped his head as Jackson kissed his way down Day’s throat, giving him more access. “I’m really not worth all this effort, Jackson. I don’t say this because I feel sorry for myself, I say it because it’s true. There are too many things about me you don’t know. I know you think my illiteracy is something that can be fixed, but it can’t. I’m not just dyslexic. I have a sensory processing disorder that just doesn’t allow the pieces to line up for me. I had a speech impediment and a stutter too, but those are things I outgrew. My dyslexia, combined with whatever other problems I have…up here…” He tapped his temple. “That’s never going to go away. I’m never going to be able to sit down and read a book or write anything that doesn’t look like a preschooler wrote it. That’s just how it is.”
Jackson didn’t necessarily believe that was true, but Day clearly did, and, for right now, Jackson had to accept that. “I don’t care if you can’t read. I don’t care if you ever learn to read. You’ve clearly figured out a system that works for you. I just want you to let me in.”
Day rested his head against Jackson’s shoulder. “The optimist in you is going to leave us both broken if you don’t learn to listen to me. Run now, Jackson, before it’s too late.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Jackson looked at his watch. “Actually, that’s not true. It’s Sunday. So we’re both expected at my mother’s house…for dinner. In two hours.”
“I can’t believe you just decided to spring this whole dinner with your family thing on me at the last minute.”
“I wasn’t trying to spring it on you last minute. If I’m in town, I do Sunday dinners with my family. I can’t leave you alone with some crazy stalker looking for you here in LA. Also, I’d rather keep you close after what happened between us earlier.”
Day shook his head. “No. I’m not going. I’m not meeting your family. This is too much. It was bad enough meeting your sister—who hated me, by the way. Now, you want to parade me around to your whole family? Why? I keep telling you this thing between us is temporary, and you just keep acting like we’ve been dating for a year instead of fucking each other for a month.”
Jackson looked at Day like he was crazy. Hewascrazy. He was acting crazy, but he couldn’t stop himself. Ever since Jackson figured out his secret, he’d felt like he was trapped outside with a tornado bearing down on him. Having to sit with Jackson’s family while Jackson’s mother asked him a million questions and his sisters watched made Day sick to his stomach.
Day had just wanted the fantasy for a few more days. Was that too much to ask? A few days to pretend he was a normal guy without a warehouse full of baggage. A few days to pretend there was a world where he and Jackson fit together, but it just wasn’t true. But then Jackson had gone and ruined everything because he just didn’t see Day for what he really was: a lost fucking cause. Why couldn’t Jackson see that? Day needed to make him see that.
